Investigations on the material flow and the role of the resulting hooks on the mechanical behaviour of dissimilar friction stir welded Al2024-T3 to Ti-6Al-4V overlap joints

Abstract During friction stir lap joint welding, hooks are systematically formed at the interface of dissimilar Al2024/Ti-6Al-4V plates. Various hooks dimensions and shapes are observed according to the welding parameters (welding speed, rotational speed and double-pass). Based on digital image correlation (DIC) during tensile shear tests, it is found that hooks features govern the fracture behaviours and, hence, the mechanical properties of the overall welds. In particular, three fracture behaviours are obtained: at the interface, in the Al2024 and across the Ti-6Al-4V plate, which was never reported in dissimilar Al/Ti studies. The aims of this work are (i) to study the influence of FSW parameters on the mechanisms of hooks formation and (ii) to understand the role of both AS and RS hooks on the mechanical behaviour of the welds, by the means of two new approaches. First, hooks are investigated by X-ray tomography which provided some innovative insight into the material flow (3D viewing). Based on these qualitative and quantitative results, hooks are used as tracers and two new scenarios of AS and RS generation are proposed. Then, the contribution of both hooks on the stress distribution is clearly revealed by some calculations of the stresses reached around AS and RS hooks. Contrary to RS hook, AS hook is sharp and, hence, the stress reached at the top of AS hook is characterized by a stress concentration. The results showed that the fracture behaviours are greatly influenced by hooks size and the formation of microstructural defects inside the Ti-6Al-4V, which depend on the welding parameters. In conclusions, this work revealed the relationship between the achievable parameters, the resulting hooks dimensions and the fracture behaviours. In addition, based on the understanding of the material flow, another FSW parameters are proposed to optimize the mechanical properties.